{"id":4777,"date":"2018-02-13T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T06:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/02\/13\/word-of-the-day-nychthemeron\/"},"modified":"2018-02-13T06:00:44","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T06:00:44","slug":"word-of-the-day-nychthemeron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/02\/13\/word-of-the-day-nychthemeron\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Nychthemeron"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed that 'day' is ambiguous: it can refer to a 24-hour period or to the non-nocturnal portion of a 24-hour period. The ambiguity spreads to the Latin injunction, Carpe diem!<\/em> Does it include Carpe noctem!<\/em> or exclude it? Does one seize the night when one seizes the day? <\/span><\/p>\n

Or perhaps neither: to seize the day is to make good use of the present, whatever its duration, whether it be an hour, a day, a week.  A nychthemeron, from the Greek nyktos<\/em> (night) and hemera<\/em> (day) is a  period of 24 hours, a night and a day. Sleep researchers distinguish the nychthemeral from the circadian. According to Michael Quinion<\/a>, "Circadian refers to daily cycles that are driven by an internal body clock, while nychthemeral rhythms are imposed by the external environment."<\/span><\/p>\n

The use of the word is illustrated in this magnificent sentence from  The Neglected Argument for the Reality of God<\/a> by the great American philosopher, C. S. Peirce: "The dawn and the gloaming most invite one to Musement; but I have found no watch of the nychthemeron that has not its own advantages for the pursuit."<\/p>\n

'Gloaming' is another one of those beautiful old poetic words that we conservatives must not allow to fall into desuetude. Use it or lose   it. It means twilight.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed that 'day' is ambiguous: it can refer to a 24-hour period or to the non-nocturnal portion of a 24-hour period. The ambiguity spreads to the Latin injunction, Carpe diem! Does it include Carpe noctem! or exclude it? Does one seize the night when one seizes the day? Or perhaps neither: to seize the day is … Continue reading “Word of the Day: Nychthemeron”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[280],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}